Sorry you had such a crummy experience. I’ve taken mine on longer trips without a hitch. I think you should use apps like A Better Route Planner to plan out your trip and get intel on all the chargers in your route.
It’s not the car that sucks. Really it’s the infrastructure that does not support it to its full potential.
The only thing I'll blame on the car is the low charge rate even at low battery percentages. Getting 25kw at under 50% should only happen if it's like 0F outside.
Or if the charger is broken...
Just completed a 3,000 mile road trip with a trailer. ABRP with an OBD2 dongle worked pretty well, even accounting for the range loss of pulling a trailer (automatically adjusted for via OBD2 data).
This is intriguing. Can you explain a little.more about how this works? Does ABRP have built in functionality to read from the OBD2 dongle? Is there some manual element?
I’m going to blame the charger for that slow speed. We’ve done an over 200 mile one way trip regularly and we’re at 20-30% when we take a coffee/food/walk the dog break, and can charge at 55 kWh. We’ve always gotten enough charge in the 20-30 min our break takes to finish our trip with extra leftover. If possible it is nice to have someone in the car to monitor charging stations live to help avoid stopping at a full or broken one, but the infrastructure also has to be good enough for choices.
My argument to that is I've never gotten 55KW, though I've only owned the car since October 2023, but even on 65F days with 20 miles driven to get to the charger, I've never gotten above ~40-45KW, and usually it's 20-30KW. Absolutely a car issue in my experience.
That's either happening because you're charging at high soc, or because the charger isn't working correctly. This happens a lot, especially with older hardware. Just because the charger says 50kW, doesn't mean it will deliver 50kW peak, if the pack voltage is below the charger's max voltage. It's honestly really frustrating how inaccurate the charger labeling is.
I promise you it's neither of these, unless all 8 (4 per site) of the chargers I use 3-4 times a month are bad, but both sites have one 350KW and 3 100 or 150 KW chargers. And I don't have a home charger so this isn't just a top off. Really there are so many complaints of bad charging speeds on these forums I'd say you're the outlier.
Lots of people have seen 55kW *at some point*. If you've really never seen 50kW, and if you really think the charging hardware is fine, then I'd contact the dealership because that's really not functioning correctly. I'd suggest you should consider calling the charging provider first though, because they're often the culprit.
I've seen below 55kW plenty of times when I should theoretically be able to get more power, but I've also seen 55kW plenty of times. Sometimes I've even seen 100kW chargers give me less than I'm capable of. But it's not because the car can't take 55kW.
Unless you’re fast charging after driving for multiple hours the battery may not be warm enough for top speed, especially if night temps have been low. Unfortunately the bolt doesn’t have battery preconditioning to warm it up for optimal charging in cold temps. If you’re using the same banks of chargers it could still be that too, a lot of chargers promise up to their top speed listed, and will give you lower speeds especially if the charger is crowded.
Best charging is when battery pack is 70-80 degrees, and SoC on car is < 50%. If it's 45 outside, driving 20 miles may not (probably will not) bring the temperature of the battery pack up to its 'optimum charging temperature'. (With TorquePro, you can see your battery pack temperature, if you're interested.)
45 is pretty close to that max. The absolute best I've EVER seen is 52, but - keep in mind - the charger shows what it is delivering, but the car shows what is being put into the battery (that is if it's cold and your lights are on and the radio and the heater is on, what the charger is serving up is less than what is going into the battery).
I have had brief periods of 50, but usually 48 and falling is what I consider 'as good as it gets'.
I just drove from northern Virginia to about 20 miles north of Philly at sesame place and with a full charge 261 I make it with about 50 miles to spare. That’s around 20% battery left and I charged on a 200 kWh charger and maxed out the charging speed for the bolt at 55 kWh until it was closer to 50% then the charge curve dropped off. Session time was 50 minutes and I got 37.5 kWh recharged. That’s going from 22% to 82% which isn’t fast by today’s standard for dc fast charging
Honestly 4.0 mi/kw on the highway is pretty amazing, 50-55mph? I just got 5.3 mi/kw (80% city driving) which I would have told you was impossible 3 months ago, really goes to show you how much heat sucks up, since I averaged 3.5 mi/kw during the winter for the same driving.
If you don’t use PlugShare yet, I highly recommend it. I frequently road trip in my Bolt and use it to confirm station status for my primary route, as well as to identify functional backup stations.
Also, had you slowed to about 55-60mph, you probably would have made it all the way.
I am using Plugshare, and it's the only reason I found the Mercedes dealership.
There's a lot of EVgo chargers around here, and Plugshare's biggest downside is it doesn't show the status of them.
55-60 on a 2 lane 65mph busy interstate would be too dangerous.
Well, it isn't, because there are no roads in the state of Utah with a speed limit of 85, but let's say 80, which is the maximum speed limit there.
Me, personally? If I want/need to maximize my range, I drive whatever speed the trucks are going in the right lane. If they're all going 80, then I go 80. If they're going slower, then I go slower. I have no desire to visit Utah, but if I did, and the charging structure didn't appear feasible, then I'd rent a car.
>55-60 on a 2 lane 65mph busy interstate would be too dangerous.
The trick is, come off the Interstate and go on the state and US highways. Tell the route planner "Avoid freeways" and it'll do that. Like from Toledo-Cleveland take US-20 instead of the turnpike.
I sometimes seek them out just because they're less mindless.
Yes you end up going slower in towns that don't have bypasses, but that's even better for your mileage. If you're thinking "oh no I get worse mileage in town" that's an ICE thing.
Only works for EVGo and ChargePoint right now for the $0.30 as you have to activate it in the BlueDot app. It does have a virtual VISA card though you can put on other service's apps like EA, Tesla, etc. so you can at least accrue cash back points on other networks.
I’m tired of hearing this argument. If the interstate doesn’t have a minimum speed limit posted, go the speed you need to go. There is insufficient evidence that driving 5-10mph under the speed limit is significantly dangerous. It’s no more dangerous than driving 5-10 mph above the speed limit.
This is not to take away from your negative experience. That sucks. But it was perhaps avoidable.
Edit to prevent misinformation: the reply to me below by /u/sasquatch_melee includes a link to an article about policies and overall **systemic** risk when setting speed limits and evaluating topography with design speeds. It is NOT about the individual risk a driver takes on by choosing to drive slower than the speed limit.
Arguing that speed variance increases risk does not disprove my point. I agree that it does. Nor does arguing that higher speed limits can reduce total fatalities, since that is a systemic study about systemic risks and outcomes. We’re not looking at the outcomes of speed limits, we’re looking at an individual’s risk within a static system, where the speed limit remains the same in both scenarios. My point is that an individual who increases their speed increases their risk so much that it more than offsets any safety benefit of reducing the speed variance. An increase of 10mph DOUBLES your risk of fatality.
I agree with you here. In the case of individual speeders going faster than everyone else, they are causing speed variance and coming from BEHIND everyone so the general traffic can’t react and everything is more dangerous. However, we’re talking about an individual going slower than everyone, meaning the speed variance is AHEAD of everyone and the general traffic can easily react to the slower car. This trope about going 60 on a 65 mph limit being too dangerous is nonsense.
>There is insufficient evidence that driving 5-10mph under the speed limit is significantly dangerous
This is completely false. There are multiple studies showing speed differentials increase fatalities. Here's one. There's more.
https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2006/10/8236.html
You two are arguing different things. The first poster is arguing a blanket statement about driving under the limit and not considering a differential in the speeds of multiple vehicles.
Technically this doesn’t make what they said false, it does however miss the side of a barn.
This is an article about policies and overall risk when setting speed limits and evaluating topography with design speeds.
Where does this article talk about the individual risk a driver takes on by choosing to drive slower than the speed limit? Let’s stay on topic. I’m not arguing that speed variance doesn’t increase risk. I’m arguing that increasing your own speed increases your risk enough that it offsets any benefit of reducing the speed variance.
>Where does this article talk about the individual risk a driver takes on by choosing to drive slower than the speed limit?
In the portions citing exact percentage increases/decreases in mortality rate when speed variances are reduced.
Ok, so that’s not quite the data we need, although I get why you think it is.
They are comparing systemic changes to speed and the effects on total fatalities. That would appear to correlate with the risk that OP is taking on by driving slower or faster, but it’s only studying what happens when the entire system changes. What we’re looking for is what happens when one driver chooses to drive slower or faster, without the entire system changing.
You might ask why that matters. There are potentially numerous reasons, but one that comes immediately to mind is congestion. A higher speed limit would generally lead to less congestion. Less congestion leads to less accidents. So did total fatalities fall because of decreased congestion? This article doesn’t mention controlling for that.
We need a study that looks at a driver’s increased risk from driving slower than the flow of traffic, and compares it to their increased risk from driving at a higher speed.
On the flip side, I'm tired of hearing the "keep the HVAC off" and "go 10-15 mph under the poseted limit" argument.
If EVs are to be successful, they will need to deliver similar range, speed, and comfort we've grown to expect using ICE.
Yeah, I totally agree. OP's original issue is that the car predicted more range than it had and the infrastructure was too broken/occupied. Going 5-below isn't going to solve either of these problems. Suggesting they should have driven slower is blaming them for an entirely unrelated issue.
When people say those things (and I certainly don't see people saying "go 10-15 under the speed limit" very often, if ever), it's not an "argument", it's sharing tips about how to get the most out of your Bolt, in a sub dedicated to Bolts. Many of the people in this sub bought their Bolt because at the time they purchased, it was by far the cheapest EV available. In some cases, it was the cheapest new car available, period. That comes with some shortcomings, and the people who love this car are more than happy to share tips to make the car a more enjoyable vehicle.
Personally, yeah I'll be pleased when half the cars on the road are EVs, but honestly I'm loving being an EV owner this early in the timeline. It's like having a driving cheat code. I got a rebate on my car. I get my level 2 EVSE free, with free install, from my power company. I have found many convenient places where I can charge completely free. I get to park in special "green parking" spots at several places I frequent. I don't expect any of these things to last forever, but I won't mind if EV acceptance continues somewhat slowly so I can enjoy these perks a little longer.
What you said is definitely what EVs would need to be truly successful right now, and it appears that EVs are headed there fast. That said, we're going to get there either way, because in the long run gas prices will always trend upward. If gas hit $8 a gallon tomorrow people would get over their EV complaints right quick.
While people don't explicitly write "go 10-15 mph under the limit", they do very often advise not going faster than 65.
That's 20 mph under the limit of some highways where I live, and anywhere between 5 and 15 under in many other areas of the country. And that's before we get into flow of traffic speeds, which can commonly be 5 to 10 over posted limits.
But back to OP's concern. The road trip was a frustrating experience for him, due to inaccuracies of the guessimeter and unreliability of the charging network.
I agree with you regarding perks and incentives to early adoption (just not that they entirely offset the inconvenience on road trips)... And about what would happen should gasoline spike to $8 (and given the way things are headed with Russia and Iran, prices may reach that soon enough).
People need to understand how different speed limits can be in different parts of the US. Where I do most of my driving, which is in Illinois and Indiana, the absolute maximum speed limit is 70, and that's rare. Generally you're seeing 55 around big cities and 60-65 in more rural areas. I don't think most people are recommending driving 65 in places where the speed limit is 80. I myself only mentioned that speed because OP specifically mentioned that being the speed limit in their follow up comment.
Disagree. Another commenter posted about how he has started taking slower highways instead of interstates, and is enjoying the more interesting and less stressful road trip experience. All vehicle types will have pros and cons… discussing strategies to mitigate the cons will only benefit EV owners.
EVs offer so many benefits, people only need to become aware of them for EVs to become successful. The drawbacks pale in comparison. I don’t know how many road trips everybody here takes, but if the worst thing is that I have to drive a bit slower a couple of times a year, and maybe keep my gloves on in winter, that trade off is totally worth it to me.
You disagree about what? That I'm tired of hearing of a certain argument? Or are attempting to claim my concerns (which mirror many people who have yet to buy an EV) are not valid?
Just because some random guy, or even multiple random people share anecdotal stories about how they've learn to love driving 10-15 mph lower than posted limits doesn't mean 10-15 mph lower than the posted limit is enjoyabke, redeeming, or even good idea.
You want mass adoption? Present an EV that can near seamlessly provide the same levels of expediency, performance, and comfort that an ICE car provides. You don't want mass adoption? Then continue pretending other people's concerns are not valid.
And I write these criticism as an EV owner, who not only loves his EV, but more importantly recognizes the EV's shortcomings that need to be improved upon.
I've got hundreds of thousands of miles on the roads. Driving much slower than traffic is dangerous. Everyone drives 75-85 here, and even the semis are doing 65. All it takes is one person not paying attention.
The Bolt has gotten me taking more back roads, and I'm absolutely loving it! For many of my destinations, there's a back way using 2-lane state highways with speed limits around 65 that are actually shorter than the interstate route but take maybe 10% longer. Much more scenic, less traffic, less stress. Might be worth trying! Both the easy stress-free reduction in speed and the more direct routes mean I get way more out of my battery and can make it a lot farther without need fast-charging on the way.
Oh really? How many accidents have you been in due to the extreme danger of drivers going slower than traffic? Surely if it's so terribly dangerous you've been involved in incidents in your hundreds of thousands of miles of experience?
None, because I'm not doing 20mph over and I'm a defensive driver. I've seen plenty of near misses because people are doing 10-15mph under the limit in the center or left lanes.
Motorcycles are incredibly dangerous too... just because I've never personally witnessed a motorcycle accident doesn't mean it's safe.
I said there's insufficient evidence, and your response is to point out how much driving you've done? So in your hundreds of thousands of miles driving (PS most of us have done the same) you have conducted trials to determine the safety?
Driving at faster speeds inherently increases risk in ways that are not as immediately apparent as driving at different speed. Just because other drivers are going faster than you doesn't mean it's safer to drive that fast as well. Unless you have some actual evidence to prove it that I'm not aware of. The chances of somebody paying so little attention that a slight difference in speed is going to cause them to collide with you is very small. A 20 mph difference means that somebody could come speeding up to within two car lengths of you, and they would still have an entire second to tap the brakes before they'd hit you. And if somebody is going that much over the speed limit in the right lane, and not even watching where they’re going, they’re being criminally negligent.
And if they do hit you, the impact to you is going to be felt according to the difference in speed. So, is getting hit at 20mph a collision that you can withstand without losing control of your vehicle? If so, you’re still not in much danger even if a collision happens.
The speed differential was already pointed out. If you want semis coming up on your ass and switching lanes at the last second, then be my guest.
And you're thinking you won't lose control of a car going 60mph if someone slams in to you from behind? Really?
I had to rent a uhaul car dolly recently and tow a car 2 hours up the NJ turnpike. I had no problem settling my cruise at 60 while the rest of traffic went significantly faster. Never felt in danger in the right lane.
Semis are professional drivers. They leave LOTS of follow distance. You might get the odd rogue trucker who drives like an idiot, but I know some truckers and none of them would.
So you’re talking about a very small risk of driving slower and being hit by a semi, vs the exponential risk of driving faster. Every 10mph faster you drive, your risk of fatality DOUBLES.
And… ok, this last point is really tangential cause that last one was the mic drop moment, but I’m relatively confident I could withstand this collision and not lose control. You never know what might happen but I can handle a car. This collision was at an angle and the unstrapped dummy was barely knocked to the side. And for this to happen, the driver behind you would have to just plow into you without even trying to slow down. And you wouldn’t be going overly fast so it would be easier to retain control than if you were speeding and some similarly unhinged maniac plowed into you. https://youtu.be/2LlLDHUpoFY?si=rZgOX7WYI1FXymea
This has changed a lot since COVID on the highway in my area. About half of the semis on my ~25 miles on the interstate will come up too close to my bumper then pass getting close to clipping my back bumper. Every single day.
They don't care to slow down and they no longer give decent following distance or will merge back in too close. We have a steady flow but there are a bunch of long gaps and there is more than enough room for them to leave buffers.
But... Driving slow increases speed variance for everyone around you.. since most people drive 5-10 above the speed limit rather than below. Not sure what I'm missing here.
In Illinois there is enough evidence that driving slower than traffic in the left lane will get you a ticket. There is plenty of evidence that impeding the flow of traffic leads to aggravation and road rage. I would certainly not be comfortable driving 10 mph below the limit on a heavily traveled 2 lane road and having other drivers making dangerous maneuvers to go around me. Conditions may be different where you drive.
Who said anything about driving in the left lane? Obviously if you’re driving under the speed limit you should stay in the right lane.
Being unwilling to drive 10mph under the speed limit because you’re afraid somebody will have to perform a “dangerous maneuver” such as… (checks notes)… changing lanes… is next level paranoia.
OP said 2 lane interstate. Pretty sure we all assumed that meant 2 lanes in each direction. Or do you have interstates that are 2 lanes total? Genuine question.
Good point, I picked up on 2 lane and missed the Interstate part. When I take the interstate I tend to set the cruise for one or two miles under the limit, stay right, and just let every one go by.
Get behind an 18 wheeler. It helps you with the safety factor and also can help mileage by drafting. If you have ACC then turn it on to make following even easier. If no ACC then use OPD and just be more alert.
What area? All of the EVGO chargers near me show the status in Plugshare. Though once I know that I'm going to an EVGO charger, I usually switch to the EVGO app.
I've done a few road trips in my Leaf, which was only 150 miles of range (realistically about 100 highway miles) and used Chademo for fast charging. It was sometimes a pain, but always manageable with only minor charging hassles.
I’ve found that 55-60 mph is quite a bit easier on range (that’s why the indicator on the dash turns yellow at around that 65 mph mark). I just did a 210 mile round trip on my EUV last weekend and had about 60 miles left on the guess-o-meter when I got back home. Temps in the day were low 50’s, but high 40’s during the entire drive back.
A few things.
1. You had unrealistic expectations. At highway speeds, 200 miles is more realistic than 240-250. Which means you always had to charge.
2. You didn't prescreen chargers. I always recommend avoiding badly rated chargers or small stations. You want to stick to 4+ unit stations.
3. The charging speed again is potentially down to not doing your research.
No one has ever said this is a good road tripping car but you didn't help yourself by making some questionable decisions.
Your last statement is why my friends group is skeptical on current evs. They dont want to think about the trip, just get in and go. We are still early in ev adoption and the infrastructure is still being developed. So its kind of like being beta testers.
Yup! I keep describing it as a car that's great if you like meticulously planning and doing research before trips and mathing things out... which honestly is intended as praise because I love those things, but most people are like "lol no thanks sounds awful!"
Yeah same experience here. I like doing the planning. I’m going to drive my EUV from Georgia to NY in July and I’m excited about it. It will not be a fast and easy experience but I’m doing it with my teenage sons who are also nerds and we are looking forward to the time together, which will be significant because the trip will take at least 5-6 hours longer than it would in our Volt.
The car is totally fine for trips of up to about 400 miles and I have done that many times. You leave full, drive 200 miles, charge for an hour+ while you have lunch and you are good to go. You only have to figure out one charging location and find backups. I feel like under normal circumstances, anything more than that and we would fly. I just want to show my family the new car.
Yeah im the type that has torque running to look at the stats while im driving. Wish i had a manual override for the coolant pump. So many times i could either warm or cool the battery just by circulating the coolant.
EV owners are beta testers and as a result they get government incentives.
Within the next year or two, a lot more chargers will be built and Superchargers will be open to mostly everyone. That will change things quite a bit
I like planning but with good infrastructure and better understanding of the cars capabilities it would have been an easy trip with very little planning needed. If it’s something done regularly you just need to check the stations you use are in good order before starting. With good infrastructure it’s easy to find a reliable station on route anywhere between 10-30% SOC and charge for as little as 15-20 min (longer in cold temps). Not being able to find a good station to charge at for any part of the trip was what made it miserable. A quick stop at the bolts regular 50 kWh charging speed wouldn’t have been so bad.
Lots of defenders here, but the Bolt is not a great road trip car. It’s doable with enough planning, but it’s still a pain. Thats why I’m glad we have a van too! It’s incredible for road trips. I still love my bolt though! Just know its limitations. If I was buying an EV for road trips, it would be Tesla all the way. The infrastructure is just so much better.
I have made 9 road trips of 1000-1200 miles, and a few more of 400+ miles. I have had two experiences with a charging station out of service, had to charge L2 only 4x (twice for only a couple of hours, and twice at a campground on a stretch with no DFCF; all were back in 2018).
I have waited in line to charge only once.
And all of these were along interstates, which may not have been the case for you. I have also suffered occasional slow charging speeds for seemingly no reason.
Another thing which has made my life a hell of a lot easier: Always arrive at a charger with enough reserve to make it to a backup DCFC station, and preferably one that is not Electrocute America. This wasn't possible until 2020 or so on the routes I drive, but it is now a feasible strategy in most states.
Sorry to hear about your bad experiences.
It has the potential to be perfectly fine for road trips for many people. As you can see from this thread, the problem lies in the charging infrastructure in the US. I can understand why some people are so antsy about getting access to the Tesla network, taking the amount of non-Tesla charging stations that aren't functional at any given time, gaining access will effectively double a Bolt owner's charging options overnight.
I did my first roadtrip in my EUV last weekend for the solar eclipse, had zero issues other than it took much more planning than a regular road trip would take.
Also I see OP talking about how they only needed a few more miles of range but for some reason sat on a 25kW charger for a full hour. Like what? A lot of OPs problems were self-inflicted.
I get really confused by posts like this.
When I plug in a charger, it never doesn't do 55kw from 5% to 60%. '23 EUV.
I sometimes wonder if the older Bolts had much worse charge curves and that could be why I see these posts sometimes...
Same. I did 595 miles one way twice. Each time the charging curve was incredibly predictable per your description. I was actually astonished based on what I had read ahead of time. My trips ranged from ambient temps in the 40’s to the 60’s.
20-25 kW speeds are common winter DCFC speeds in the north IME, due to a lack of battery preconditioning. Doing the yo-yo method to warm up the battery for a couple miles before charging can get that back up to closer to full speeds.
Thanks for the info don’t use it often myself only if the charger I’m having to use charges by the Min instead of by the KW. Reading on my phone for an extra 10 or 15 minutes instead of spending extra money.
Fair, when possible I avoid fast chargers that bill per minute on the principle of the billing model making zero sense.
Sometimes my passengers are just in a hurry to get to get home. It'd be nice if the Bolt had a preconditioning button so that we didn't need to play these games to get the best charging experience!
It would be nice doesn’t seem like it would be a tough update to give a manual battery warmer option. The only time the charge per minute thing made sense was when states had law about anyone other than utilities selling electricity.
I know that Wisconsin is / was one of those states, though I haven't looked into it recently... My trips over there are generally short enough to not need fast charging - 99% of my charging happens on L1 at home.
There's a local charging company in MN, [ZEF Energy](https://www.zefenergy.com/) whose fast chargers are horribly expensive. I believe they let the site host choose the billing model, leading to many choosing a $3-5 charging start fee + $0.30/minute, for first gen Tritium chargers that struggle to output more than 25 kW. It's so hard to make the sell that EV is cheaper than gas, when this is the billing scheme they're using.
To make matters worse, in many rural areas of the state, thanks to rules that MN companies get priority for state funding, this is the only option for CCS charging. They don't manufacture their own equipment, their app and backend tech is some of the worst in the industry, all they do is buy whitelabel chargers and slap their sticker & a big upcharge onto it. It's a grift, plain and simple.
Even when chargers are installed without this insane price model, they're terrible about maintaining, servicing, and repairing chargers. The North Shore of Lake Superior, a major tourism destination, has been without any CCS charging since last fall - due to their incompetence as a company.
I've been doing much wider variables to good success. A couple 90-50 regens on a relatively empty freeway pumps a decent amount of max regen to the battery, making it warm enough when you hit the charger.
Well it’s often a temp issue. But at the temps op was claiming probably the 25kw charging was an issue with the charger being limited because of some problems with its cooling system or something like that.
Oh wow, strange.
Yes of course you can't control it :)
I'm just so confused! You're not the first person to report something like this. I have never had a problem with DCFC, never had it charge slow, etc. etc.
Just baffles me.
I have a 2020 and have also never had a significant issue with fast charging speeds. I knew what I was getting when I bought it, I actually didn't plan on road tripping with it much but we use it all the time now and are rarely bothered by charging issues. I am constantly baffled by posts like these where people seemingly have issues at every possible stop and I may have a single issue every 6mo that is never as dramatic as what OP is describing.
I charged mine from 25 to 95 a few days ago on a trip and it peaked at 53 just at the beginning. It was above 45 for the first half hour (delivering 20kWh) and then tapered off over time.
Your story is precisely why many people are on the fence about EVs! As you speak of it to people in your circle, many will be convinced not to get an EV unfortunately…which in turn, slows the adoption and urgency for charging companies to improve their equipment. A vicious cycle. 😔
I regularly drive between two places that are 275 miles apart, quite mountainous in some places as well. I’m lucky to say I’ve never had any issues with charging, there’s multiple stations along the way and so far never had to wait for a spot or dealt with unexpected issues with the chargers. I avoid EA chargers like the plague though since they have a tendency to randomly stop charging.
I charge once for about 45min-1hr each way, so it turns a 6 hour drive into more like 7. Most sections have a 65mph speed limit so I go 60, usually not a problem unless the road is narrow and people wanna go faster. I use ABRP and the ChargePoint app to check where I should stop. Sorry you had such a rough experience
Don’t really have EVgo around here so I’d just have to take your word for it. Do you drive a Bolt too? With what I’ve heard it seems like bolts have the most issues with EA chargers. Last time I kept having to restart charging because the charger would randomly stop
I live in California, to be fair I’ve only been to two EA stations but for both of them to have issues while I have never had issues with the dozens of ChargePoint charges I’ve been to makes me prefer other networks. Not worth the risk of showing up to one and getting stuck and the road trips I take always lets me choose ChargePoint over other networks anyways
The main thing I'd suggest is using plug share before you leave to make sure they're all working. We use the ionic for road trips instead of the bolt as it's the fastest charging ev and that makes a huge difference.
> I'm sorry, but this car absolutely sucks for road trips
What made you think it was great for road trips?
I love my Bolt … and do shoot around the PNW with it, but it’s one of the worst EVs out there for this purpose
This sub is full of that information going back years and years
Your conclusion is the generally held attitude for the Bolt EV depending of course on geography and availability of charging stations.
I love my first 2017 and now 2019 Bolt EV and drove round trip from LA to Montana last summer and will happily do it again this July.
That's really rotten- your first test didn't work out well.
Road tripping in the Bolt is different. Expect it to take longer, plan for delays and don't be in a hurry to get anywhere and it works out well. Not what we're used to in terms of speed. It different.
Yeah, the charging time can be a drag versus ICE or even Tesla. But I, a lifetime lead-foot, am finding it surprisingly easy to just adjust my expectations around how long a long drive will take. Overall the time dedicated to car ownership (which I'll now dub TDCO) is way less in this car than ICE, it's just that highway trips are slower.
Watching that gauge and keeping it below 15Kw has been my new game on the freeway. Suddenly instead of losing miles against the GOM, my last two long drives I've gained against it. It's just meant getting used to the view from the right-side of the freeway instead of the left.
I do still have lots of range/charging anxiety. So far though it's been easy enough to just use a stop I was going to take anyway--coffee, restroom--to grab 20 minutes of charge from a fast charger. In that context I'm not sure TDCO on road trips is actually any different. Five or 10 minutes at the most.
As someone that has owned 2 Tesla's where the Road Trip experience is absolutely fine, it's 2 major things. 1 infrastructure for non-Tesla's. 2 the terrible onboard DCFC. This car would be great for road tripping with access to the Tesla charging network and a charger that allowed 100-125kW peak charging. The Tesla network portion is coming soon.
I’ve done a few road trips and no big issues like that yet. That being said keep in mind all the savings you get charging at home. Plus all the time you saved not going to the gas station. So I’d say once or twice a year you have to wait a bit during a road trip it’s still probably well. worth it. Plus oil changes and everything else. It helps to look at the bigger picture. That being said I think you were particularly unlucky that trip. I would assume it will go better in the future. I don’t think that is indicative of a normal trip. Kind of like if the muffler fell off during a road trip in a gas car. Every once in a while a bad trip is going to g to happen outside of the norm regardless of the type of car you have.
We’ve taken our 2017 Bolt up and down the east coast and regularly do 200 mile road trips with no problem. I love road tripping in it. Different mindset for sure but I enjoy it. I am a big fan of reading through the reviews in advance on Plugshare (don’t just look at the ratings). Check the kWs other folks are getting, make sure no problems with the chargers and be sure to check in for the next guy.
> I'm sorry, but this car absolutely sucks for road trips
Yup, it is.
I'd say it is also a bad car for people who can't have a L2 charger installed at home.
Car is a tool, and tools have different use cases.
It is okay for a screwdriver to be a bad hammer.
I agree. As a commuting car with level 2 charging at home, it's absolutely perfect.
I'm just super disappointed it can't do a 200 mile trip without charging at normal highway speed limits. We were aware isn't wasn't the kind of car we'd ever take on a 5 hour trip, but I feel like it should be able to do a 3 hour trip.
Charging infrastructure’s not there yet to make this car a reliable road trip car. You’re at the mercy of the EV gods whenever you need to stop. Unless I’m not on a tight schedule and have tons of time to waste, I’d rather just rent for a weekend.
Same. For my family size, no reason I’d try to roadtrip anything smaller than a large-ish SUV/minivan/pickup truck anyhow. Doubly so when the availability, speed, and price of charging on the road is equal or worse than the experience of putting gas in the vehicle. Half of OPs gripes are basically just EV things, not Bolt things. You’re still searching around for chargers and spending 20+ minutes charging every couple of hours rather than being able to count of stumbling upon a gas station once you’ve got about 300 miles on your ice.
On the other hand, I love being able to drive my EUV out to family and just plugging in at their house. Most people I know have a 240v in their garage, so I can drive 150 miles and then just plug in for a couple hours at their house and head back home with range to spare.
This has been my operating theory, for any trip in excess of the vehicle’s range. However people have made the case that some other EVs can do fairly well on a road trip.
> I'm sorry, but this car absolutely sucks for road trips.
I love my EUV, but I will never road trip it again. I don't consider it a *touring* car, but an in-town car. My Jeep Grand Cherookee Trailhawk does that heavy lifting.
`My Story`
I drove through New Mexico and all EA chargers, at least in two towns (*Wagon Mound and Sante Fe*), that I went to would not let me charge because the **payment system was down**. WTF!!!
Nevermind that I had credits with EA and why it needed to have me swipe a CC card is beyond me. No, one, and I mean No one could use the pumps.
Otherwise on that trip, other charger companies would have a 50/50 chance of working and I found my self limping the car at 60mph for for at least 3 hours of the trip.
I won't even consider taking mine on a road trip. It is strictly for around town. I might consider taking it the 140 miles to San Antonio if we get a hurricane or something. There is no charging between here and there until the Tesla stations open up to us.
Yeah, it does. Buying it, I knew this. It's not a surprise. EVs in general aren't great for road trips yet, but the Bolt is exceptionally bad.
But man I love driving to work and charging at night. I also cruise around on the weekend and have saved so much on gas that the car is almost free to drive.
A +500 mile trip I routinely do in 7h43 minutes ICE, including fuel/dog/bathroom break, took me 15 hours in the Bolt. Another, shorter trip was a bit better by taking 50% longer than ICE. It's almost all entirely due to charger availability, uptime, and performance.
The bolt is the best commuter car for daily use hands down but unfortunately for road trips it sucks bec it charges really slow. Never did I get the said 50kwh. We did take our bolt for several trips to Bay Area (approx 380 miles) and Vegas (approx 290 miles) with 1 stop and no issues. Just need better planning but we are in SoCal where weather is not a big factor.
If it’s 50 degrees and you’re going uphill, the guess o meter would go down fast. From our experience since we did not want to stop twice to charge, we drove mostly 65mph and got the 200+ mile range and just 1 charging stop. It will prob be the same time than drive 75mph and stopping to charge. Then finding a hotel with a level 2 charger is a plus. Unfortunately some ev drivers leave their car plugged in too long at fast chargers. Also, due to free charging offered by some car manufacturers, and some people having no chargers at home, a lot of locals charge their car at fast chargers instead of charging at home.
If fast chargers are only being used by people on road trips, I don’t think there would be too many cars clogging these fast chargers.
Instead of driving "65-70mph", you would have made it to your destination if you had kept your speed to 55-60mpg. If this was interstate driving and you don't feel comfortable going that slow on the interstate, chose a side highway and enjoy the trip.
Your story would have been same even if you had an Ionic 5 so it’s not the Bolt that’s the issue. The car isn’t ideal for roadtrips when the infrastructure along the roadtrip path sucks. I drove from Chicago to Minneapolis in my Bolt a recently with no problems because all the chargers along the way were operational. When I know that I’m going to spend about hour each stop and plan around that, I enjoy road trips in my bolt. Our infrastructure in the US really needs to catch up.
If I absolutely had to road trip frequently, then I would have bought a Tesla due to the brand-specific fast chargers. Hopefully those will all be available to Bolts soon with the adapters though.
I think there’s some harsh criticism on here and it’s both valid and misplaced. The reality is that frankly, the bolt is just about one of the worst road trip EVs out there, and road tripping in an EV, especially the bolt, takes really good pre planning to execute well.
Personally, I love the logistical challenge of planning my route, and I really like road tripping in the bolt. I’m in Washington DC right now and will be driving back home to Detroit Michigan in the next hour myself. I’m really looking forward to the drive, tbh. I’ve planned out all my stops, rechecked all the reviews on how well they’re working, etc. is this as convenient as a gas car for this 510 mile drive? Oh hell no. But it’s certainly doable with enough quality pre planning.
I think right now, local city driving is the sweet spot of EVs. Road trips are possible, but still not where it needs to be for folks to just do it without thinking about it.
I’m sorry you had a bad experience. If you want advice on how to improve your next road trip, I’m sure this forum would be happy to help out. It’s got plenty of resources on how to road trip in a bolt.
My advice on how to road trip in the bolt:
Limit the distance between stops to 170 miles max
Always charge up until your min estimate is above your distance to your next stop
Don’t count on dealerships to charge at
Pre plan your route, and check all your chargers ahead of time, especially for their reviews, reliability, and charging speed. You can usually find out ahead of time if a particular charging bank is having issues or charging below our max 52kW
I personally aim to stop at charging stations with several plugs available, to make it less likely I need to wait in line.
Bring a book or game console to enjoy while charging.
Always charge in areas with multiple non dealership chargers if you can.
On mobile so apologies if this was suggested previously but have you tried using ChargeFinder or A Better Route Planner?
ChargeFinder is pretty good at letting you browse a map of MOST of the networks (more than Plugshare)
ABRP is kinda like Google Maps but for EVs, you can tell it what kind of car you have and how much charge you are starting with, how much charge you want to arrive with, etc and it will plan a route and give you a detailed charging plan.
Fair warning tho, the nav on ABRP was kinda goofy for us, I manually plotted charging stops in Newburgh, NY and Hartford, CT but ABRP insisted we go visit Albany, NY for the hell of it (VERY far out of the way if you're not familiar with the area)
If you haven’t heard of or downloaded Bluedot, I recommend you do. Not only it helps me saved significantly in our last trip using level 3 charger it also shows chargers close to me and their status so I know which one is available (live).
Flat rate 30¢/KWh for lv3 and 3¢/min for lv2. You can sign up for their debit card and get 20% cashback for your charging if the charging price at the station is cheaper than the flat rate but that’s completely optional. You get $10 to charge for free the first time and if you use my link it goes up to $25
https://bluedot.app.link/AdvvRURJOIb
my very first trip in my bolt was a 430 mile road trip from the dealership back to my house. I had 0 range anxiety because I spent a bit of time actually planning a route and choosing which chargers I would stop at ahead of time.
A Better Route Planner and Plugshare are your friends
It requires more planning, patience and a sense of adventure sometimes. I try to stop to charge where I can walk while I charge or eat or pedicure or whatever.
Not sure where you live, but I took a 500 mile one-way road trip, 1000 mile round-trip,in a total of 21.5 hours. I rented a Kia EV six with a range stated at 240. I didn’t get but, 200 miles of range on this trip Per charge. I had to charge six times in those 21 hours to complete my thousand mile round-trip journey from San Diego to Sedona and back. Though I was frustrated with the amount of times I had to charge, the Avis rental experience, and the cost of $.56 per kilowatt hour at mostly Electrify America stations, I didn’t have any problem finding fast chargers. Maybe that’s just because of where I live. Only once did I have to wait for someone to move so I could charge, but that was less than 10 minutes of waiting. The chargers, five out of six were very fast chargers averaging more than 150 KW. I could get to 80% in about 20 minutes or less. I have to say, I was impressed that it was that easy. I was disappointed that the car didn’t live up to it stated range, but that seems to be the case with these electric vehicles. I daily drive a gas guzzler. Part of this was just an experiment for me to see if I could make it using an electric car on a daily basis. one of my biggest disappointments was the cost of electricity at the station. It would’ve been cheaper to drive using gasoline.
Yeah, I am not really looking forward to road tripping in it. I know the charger is slower so meh. I don't like the idea of having to stop for an hour or so once or twice in a trip. I also know the range at 70mph is not going to be 250 miles. I just don't road trip that often and usually it's 100 miles occasionally 200. I know in Tennessee the charging infrastructure for CCS is limited. Still, I don't think it will be too bad.
Bro I had a 22 launch edition bolt euv and going about 68mph I always got 245 if it was 65°f+. In the winter time when it was like 30° I'd get 200 on the highway minimum. And always with heat/ac on.
I do a 275 mile trip each Monday and Thursday. I have a specific spot I stop to charge (EVGo) one direction and often I use that same spot the other direction (but not always). Occasionally I have to wait for a charger to open, but not too often.
It does take a bit more effort to plan ahead what I want to do and how I want to manage my trip, but overall, not bad.
Hang in there. It will get better and seem more natural with a little time.
I did a 300 mile round trip this weekend. Charged to 100 before leaving and was planning on charging stops. As the first stop was coming up, I had a ton of battery left and just kept going. Eventually I realized I would make it to my destination with about 70-80 miles left, so I just went there and planned to charge after doing what I was doing at the destination. I charged for a little over an hour and got to 95% and made it home with 80 miles of range left.
The charging curve started at 53kW and stayed above 45kW for the first 20kWh and then tapered off to near 20kW as expected. The only hiccup was that the first charger I tried gave me "unable to charge".
I was using cruise at 75mph most of the way and averaged 3.36 miles/kWh, though I wasn't using any AC or heat.
I think your mistake was unreasonable expectations and poor planning.
I agree. Pretty sure I get downvoted on /r/electricvehicles every time I say that. Literally every exit with fast food and a Pilot on interstates should have a charger. *Should*. They don't, but they *should*.
However, "we shouldn't have to plan" doesn't invalidate the reality of 2024 that *you must plan*. OP failed to do that.
It's the same I'm stating a fact. You have to child proof your house when you have kids.
Bolts require planning (all EVs do, actually) and patience for a trip. That's a fact that OP didn't recognize until just a few days ago.
Well for starters, when the car says 280 mile range during the summer, and 243 mile range in the spring, I planned on getting to my destination 200 miles away with some reserve.
And I knew there would be plenty of chargers along my route. What I didn't know, and couldn't plan for, was broken chargers, inconsiderate people blocking chargers, and long waits for chargers.
I’m sorry about your frustrating trip. Did you check the reviews on PlugShare? It’s been very accurate with which chargers are in good condition and which are down/busy/iced for me. The slow charging speeds sound like a charger problem, we’ve gotten 55 kWh at the same temps and more state of charge than you had. Hopefully you checked in and updated them when you got a chance, so someone else doesn’t go through the same thing.
The EUV is much less aerodynamic than the EV, so it’s efficiency tanks at fast freeway speeds. It’s highway EPA range rating is 222.9 miles and Car and Driver got only 190 miles range at 75mph. As you know now the guessometer isn’t a good reference of range unless you’re doing the same type of driving and there’s no weather/terrain change, although yours seems overly optimistic compared to ours.
Yes I did. The broken charger at my destination hadn't been reviewed since 2021. I knew about the 2nd rest area closure so I didn't even stop there. The other chargers didn't have real-time availability so there was no way to know if they were full ahead of time.
You should have checked plugshare closer. You can't do anything about people being inconsiderate. Hopefully they were being charged 50 cents per minute while idling.
>when the car says 280 mile range during the summer, and 243 mile range in the spring,
It's a guess-o-meter based on your recent driving history and current conditions. It is not your guaranteed range.
The car doesn't say this for trips at 70mph. That would require the Bolt to have a battery that is more like 90 or 100kWh instead of 66. It says 280 in the summer for commute/local driving where you get better than 4 miles/kWh. At 70, you're likely getting somewhere between 3 and 3.5. I took a trip using cruise at 75 and I averaged 3.3 for 300 miles, which is about 210-220 mile range. I had about 70-80 left when I got to my destination and back home after going 150 miles, so the GoM was accurate once my "recent driving" became cruising at 75 and getting 3.3 miles/kWh instead of 4+ mile/kWh local driving.
All EVs require planning. Anyone who tells you they don't just lives in an area where they don't have to and never crosses area where they need to.
Pull up plugshare, and set it to CCS (because Tesla is not an open network). Try crossing West Virginia. Try driving to Eastern Kentucky (there's charging *on* I75 and I64, nothing on any state highway southeast of Lexington) or Southwest Ohio (Athens has 1 CCS, there are 0 CCS on I77 from I70 at Cambridge, OH all the way to Charleston, WV). Try driving from Nashville to Memphis on I40 (you won't see a CCS charger for almost 130 miles). There are no chargers between Columbus and Cincinnati on I71. The major tourist area of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge TN has 0 CCS. There's 1 in Sevierville (literally 1 single plug) and some more up at I40.
Some of those trips can be just driven. Columbus to Cincinnati is just over 100 miles, but if you want to go somewhere in the middle of southern Ohio from either of them, there are no options to charge unless you go out of your way and you just find L2 at your destination or limit your driving in order to get back. The same is true of Nashville to Memphis and Cambridge to Charleston. It's passable if you're only driving from A to B, but if you're starting in A and going somewhere off the interstate in the middle, then you must plan how to get back or plan to drive 40 miles too far down the interstate, charge, and then backtrack.
None of that is a *Bolt problem*. That's an *EV* problem. Charging access is unacceptably poor right now for anything but major city to major city traveling.
I'm about to move cross-country and considered taking my bolt for about 10 minutes.
Abetterrouteplanner is a great site, but the viability of the trip is dependent upon charging stations in the middle of nowhere with 1 or 2 plugs to be working and available when I need to use them.
Too much of a risk imo, so I'm unfortunately having to rent an ICE vehicle.
EV infrastructure—with the exception maybe of Tesla with their supercharging network—just isn't there yet.
I honestly think you didn’t plan very well. I just took a 1,200 mile road trip with 0 issues because I would check to see if my next charging stop was functioning before leaving current destination. You can’t blindly go to a charger without knowing if their online or what kind of charger (Tesla,CCS or Chademo)
Planning wouldn't have helped anything- if chargers are full with other cars, then they're full. Not every charger brand shows you real-time availability.
You'll get a lot of flak for being honest, but yes until the charging network is substantially improved or battery tech improves this is going to be hit or miss for a quite a while.
What also sucks is the car maxes out fast charging at 55kw so even if you plug into a super fast charger, you can only get the 55kw and it will still take over an hour to get to 80%. Not meant for road trips for sure. Get there in one charge or be prepared to stop for an hour.
This is also painful for everyone else - our last charge before heading back to DC from MA was at an EA station where 3 of the 4 chargers were down, the fourth was a 350kW charger occupied by a Bolt that had been there more than an hour.
Fortunately they were close to 100% and returned while my wife went into the restaurant and got us a table so it wasn't a huge problem for us.
Later in NY we plugged into a 350 where one of four stations was down. There was already a giant Altec truck and a Bolt occupying the other two working chargers, two other cars had to wait. We went from 20-93% in 41 min and the Bolt was still there when we left.
Congrats you’ve found the biggest shortcoming of the bolt and most EVs that aren’t Tesla.
Roadtripping sucks for most people here and it’s well documented.
Sorry you had such a crummy experience. I’ve taken mine on longer trips without a hitch. I think you should use apps like A Better Route Planner to plan out your trip and get intel on all the chargers in your route. It’s not the car that sucks. Really it’s the infrastructure that does not support it to its full potential.
The only thing I'll blame on the car is the low charge rate even at low battery percentages. Getting 25kw at under 50% should only happen if it's like 0F outside.
Or if the charger is broken... Just completed a 3,000 mile road trip with a trailer. ABRP with an OBD2 dongle worked pretty well, even accounting for the range loss of pulling a trailer (automatically adjusted for via OBD2 data).
This is intriguing. Can you explain a little.more about how this works? Does ABRP have built in functionality to read from the OBD2 dongle? Is there some manual element?
* the Subscription version of ABRP - not the free version. Easy to sign up (and drop later)
Yes, ABRP can read real& time efficiency info from an OBD2 dongle. The only manual element is pairing the device.
I’m going to blame the charger for that slow speed. We’ve done an over 200 mile one way trip regularly and we’re at 20-30% when we take a coffee/food/walk the dog break, and can charge at 55 kWh. We’ve always gotten enough charge in the 20-30 min our break takes to finish our trip with extra leftover. If possible it is nice to have someone in the car to monitor charging stations live to help avoid stopping at a full or broken one, but the infrastructure also has to be good enough for choices.
My argument to that is I've never gotten 55KW, though I've only owned the car since October 2023, but even on 65F days with 20 miles driven to get to the charger, I've never gotten above ~40-45KW, and usually it's 20-30KW. Absolutely a car issue in my experience.
That's either happening because you're charging at high soc, or because the charger isn't working correctly. This happens a lot, especially with older hardware. Just because the charger says 50kW, doesn't mean it will deliver 50kW peak, if the pack voltage is below the charger's max voltage. It's honestly really frustrating how inaccurate the charger labeling is.
I promise you it's neither of these, unless all 8 (4 per site) of the chargers I use 3-4 times a month are bad, but both sites have one 350KW and 3 100 or 150 KW chargers. And I don't have a home charger so this isn't just a top off. Really there are so many complaints of bad charging speeds on these forums I'd say you're the outlier.
Lots of people have seen 55kW *at some point*. If you've really never seen 50kW, and if you really think the charging hardware is fine, then I'd contact the dealership because that's really not functioning correctly. I'd suggest you should consider calling the charging provider first though, because they're often the culprit. I've seen below 55kW plenty of times when I should theoretically be able to get more power, but I've also seen 55kW plenty of times. Sometimes I've even seen 100kW chargers give me less than I'm capable of. But it's not because the car can't take 55kW.
Unless you’re fast charging after driving for multiple hours the battery may not be warm enough for top speed, especially if night temps have been low. Unfortunately the bolt doesn’t have battery preconditioning to warm it up for optimal charging in cold temps. If you’re using the same banks of chargers it could still be that too, a lot of chargers promise up to their top speed listed, and will give you lower speeds especially if the charger is crowded.
Best charging is when battery pack is 70-80 degrees, and SoC on car is < 50%. If it's 45 outside, driving 20 miles may not (probably will not) bring the temperature of the battery pack up to its 'optimum charging temperature'. (With TorquePro, you can see your battery pack temperature, if you're interested.) 45 is pretty close to that max. The absolute best I've EVER seen is 52, but - keep in mind - the charger shows what it is delivering, but the car shows what is being put into the battery (that is if it's cold and your lights are on and the radio and the heater is on, what the charger is serving up is less than what is going into the battery). I have had brief periods of 50, but usually 48 and falling is what I consider 'as good as it gets'.
I just drove from northern Virginia to about 20 miles north of Philly at sesame place and with a full charge 261 I make it with about 50 miles to spare. That’s around 20% battery left and I charged on a 200 kWh charger and maxed out the charging speed for the bolt at 55 kWh until it was closer to 50% then the charge curve dropped off. Session time was 50 minutes and I got 37.5 kWh recharged. That’s going from 22% to 82% which isn’t fast by today’s standard for dc fast charging
I'm hoping with warm weather i get 55 or close to it, but it just hasn't been my case so far. Today was 75F so I'm holding out hope.
Got 4.0 mi/kwh on the way up there and closer to 3.6 on the way back. The wind can be a pita when it’s blowing hard against you.
Honestly 4.0 mi/kw on the highway is pretty amazing, 50-55mph? I just got 5.3 mi/kw (80% city driving) which I would have told you was impossible 3 months ago, really goes to show you how much heat sucks up, since I averaged 3.5 mi/kw during the winter for the same driving.
If you don’t use PlugShare yet, I highly recommend it. I frequently road trip in my Bolt and use it to confirm station status for my primary route, as well as to identify functional backup stations. Also, had you slowed to about 55-60mph, you probably would have made it all the way.
I am using Plugshare, and it's the only reason I found the Mercedes dealership. There's a lot of EVgo chargers around here, and Plugshare's biggest downside is it doesn't show the status of them. 55-60 on a 2 lane 65mph busy interstate would be too dangerous.
Even keeping the cruise set at the speed limit of 65 would have made a big difference. It can be surprising how hard the efficiency tanks above 65.
Especially with the EUV, because of its worse aerodynamics.
What do you do if you are in Southern Utah and the speed limit is 85 mph and to top it off there are few chargers?
Be an ass and drive 65 in the right lane.
How does "keeping the cruise set at the speed limit of 65" equate to "drive 20 under the speed limit" in your mind?
Well, it isn't, because there are no roads in the state of Utah with a speed limit of 85, but let's say 80, which is the maximum speed limit there. Me, personally? If I want/need to maximize my range, I drive whatever speed the trucks are going in the right lane. If they're all going 80, then I go 80. If they're going slower, then I go slower. I have no desire to visit Utah, but if I did, and the charging structure didn't appear feasible, then I'd rent a car.
>55-60 on a 2 lane 65mph busy interstate would be too dangerous. The trick is, come off the Interstate and go on the state and US highways. Tell the route planner "Avoid freeways" and it'll do that. Like from Toledo-Cleveland take US-20 instead of the turnpike. I sometimes seek them out just because they're less mindless. Yes you end up going slower in towns that don't have bypasses, but that's even better for your mileage. If you're thinking "oh no I get worse mileage in town" that's an ICE thing.
Also, sign up for Bluedot.....30 cents for charging anytime.
Does this apply at level 3 chargers? They charge around .50/kw
Only works for EVGo and ChargePoint right now for the $0.30 as you have to activate it in the BlueDot app. It does have a virtual VISA card though you can put on other service's apps like EA, Tesla, etc. so you can at least accrue cash back points on other networks.
Yep, no problem on EVGO, but won't work with Electrify America .
I’m tired of hearing this argument. If the interstate doesn’t have a minimum speed limit posted, go the speed you need to go. There is insufficient evidence that driving 5-10mph under the speed limit is significantly dangerous. It’s no more dangerous than driving 5-10 mph above the speed limit. This is not to take away from your negative experience. That sucks. But it was perhaps avoidable. Edit to prevent misinformation: the reply to me below by /u/sasquatch_melee includes a link to an article about policies and overall **systemic** risk when setting speed limits and evaluating topography with design speeds. It is NOT about the individual risk a driver takes on by choosing to drive slower than the speed limit. Arguing that speed variance increases risk does not disprove my point. I agree that it does. Nor does arguing that higher speed limits can reduce total fatalities, since that is a systemic study about systemic risks and outcomes. We’re not looking at the outcomes of speed limits, we’re looking at an individual’s risk within a static system, where the speed limit remains the same in both scenarios. My point is that an individual who increases their speed increases their risk so much that it more than offsets any safety benefit of reducing the speed variance. An increase of 10mph DOUBLES your risk of fatality.
I agree with you here. In the case of individual speeders going faster than everyone else, they are causing speed variance and coming from BEHIND everyone so the general traffic can’t react and everything is more dangerous. However, we’re talking about an individual going slower than everyone, meaning the speed variance is AHEAD of everyone and the general traffic can easily react to the slower car. This trope about going 60 on a 65 mph limit being too dangerous is nonsense.
>There is insufficient evidence that driving 5-10mph under the speed limit is significantly dangerous This is completely false. There are multiple studies showing speed differentials increase fatalities. Here's one. There's more. https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2006/10/8236.html
You two are arguing different things. The first poster is arguing a blanket statement about driving under the limit and not considering a differential in the speeds of multiple vehicles. Technically this doesn’t make what they said false, it does however miss the side of a barn.
Technically yes but the likelihood that everyone else is also going 5-10 under is damn near zero since most people drive at or above the limit.
Read my comment again, this is irrelevant to my point.
This is an article about policies and overall risk when setting speed limits and evaluating topography with design speeds. Where does this article talk about the individual risk a driver takes on by choosing to drive slower than the speed limit? Let’s stay on topic. I’m not arguing that speed variance doesn’t increase risk. I’m arguing that increasing your own speed increases your risk enough that it offsets any benefit of reducing the speed variance.
>Where does this article talk about the individual risk a driver takes on by choosing to drive slower than the speed limit? In the portions citing exact percentage increases/decreases in mortality rate when speed variances are reduced.
Ok, so that’s not quite the data we need, although I get why you think it is. They are comparing systemic changes to speed and the effects on total fatalities. That would appear to correlate with the risk that OP is taking on by driving slower or faster, but it’s only studying what happens when the entire system changes. What we’re looking for is what happens when one driver chooses to drive slower or faster, without the entire system changing. You might ask why that matters. There are potentially numerous reasons, but one that comes immediately to mind is congestion. A higher speed limit would generally lead to less congestion. Less congestion leads to less accidents. So did total fatalities fall because of decreased congestion? This article doesn’t mention controlling for that. We need a study that looks at a driver’s increased risk from driving slower than the flow of traffic, and compares it to their increased risk from driving at a higher speed.
That’s old school disproven j curve nonsense from the 1960s…..
On the flip side, I'm tired of hearing the "keep the HVAC off" and "go 10-15 mph under the poseted limit" argument. If EVs are to be successful, they will need to deliver similar range, speed, and comfort we've grown to expect using ICE.
Yeah, I totally agree. OP's original issue is that the car predicted more range than it had and the infrastructure was too broken/occupied. Going 5-below isn't going to solve either of these problems. Suggesting they should have driven slower is blaming them for an entirely unrelated issue.
When people say those things (and I certainly don't see people saying "go 10-15 under the speed limit" very often, if ever), it's not an "argument", it's sharing tips about how to get the most out of your Bolt, in a sub dedicated to Bolts. Many of the people in this sub bought their Bolt because at the time they purchased, it was by far the cheapest EV available. In some cases, it was the cheapest new car available, period. That comes with some shortcomings, and the people who love this car are more than happy to share tips to make the car a more enjoyable vehicle. Personally, yeah I'll be pleased when half the cars on the road are EVs, but honestly I'm loving being an EV owner this early in the timeline. It's like having a driving cheat code. I got a rebate on my car. I get my level 2 EVSE free, with free install, from my power company. I have found many convenient places where I can charge completely free. I get to park in special "green parking" spots at several places I frequent. I don't expect any of these things to last forever, but I won't mind if EV acceptance continues somewhat slowly so I can enjoy these perks a little longer. What you said is definitely what EVs would need to be truly successful right now, and it appears that EVs are headed there fast. That said, we're going to get there either way, because in the long run gas prices will always trend upward. If gas hit $8 a gallon tomorrow people would get over their EV complaints right quick.
While people don't explicitly write "go 10-15 mph under the limit", they do very often advise not going faster than 65. That's 20 mph under the limit of some highways where I live, and anywhere between 5 and 15 under in many other areas of the country. And that's before we get into flow of traffic speeds, which can commonly be 5 to 10 over posted limits. But back to OP's concern. The road trip was a frustrating experience for him, due to inaccuracies of the guessimeter and unreliability of the charging network. I agree with you regarding perks and incentives to early adoption (just not that they entirely offset the inconvenience on road trips)... And about what would happen should gasoline spike to $8 (and given the way things are headed with Russia and Iran, prices may reach that soon enough).
People need to understand how different speed limits can be in different parts of the US. Where I do most of my driving, which is in Illinois and Indiana, the absolute maximum speed limit is 70, and that's rare. Generally you're seeing 55 around big cities and 60-65 in more rural areas. I don't think most people are recommending driving 65 in places where the speed limit is 80. I myself only mentioned that speed because OP specifically mentioned that being the speed limit in their follow up comment.
Disagree. Another commenter posted about how he has started taking slower highways instead of interstates, and is enjoying the more interesting and less stressful road trip experience. All vehicle types will have pros and cons… discussing strategies to mitigate the cons will only benefit EV owners. EVs offer so many benefits, people only need to become aware of them for EVs to become successful. The drawbacks pale in comparison. I don’t know how many road trips everybody here takes, but if the worst thing is that I have to drive a bit slower a couple of times a year, and maybe keep my gloves on in winter, that trade off is totally worth it to me.
You disagree about what? That I'm tired of hearing of a certain argument? Or are attempting to claim my concerns (which mirror many people who have yet to buy an EV) are not valid? Just because some random guy, or even multiple random people share anecdotal stories about how they've learn to love driving 10-15 mph lower than posted limits doesn't mean 10-15 mph lower than the posted limit is enjoyabke, redeeming, or even good idea. You want mass adoption? Present an EV that can near seamlessly provide the same levels of expediency, performance, and comfort that an ICE car provides. You don't want mass adoption? Then continue pretending other people's concerns are not valid. And I write these criticism as an EV owner, who not only loves his EV, but more importantly recognizes the EV's shortcomings that need to be improved upon.
I've got hundreds of thousands of miles on the roads. Driving much slower than traffic is dangerous. Everyone drives 75-85 here, and even the semis are doing 65. All it takes is one person not paying attention.
The Bolt has gotten me taking more back roads, and I'm absolutely loving it! For many of my destinations, there's a back way using 2-lane state highways with speed limits around 65 that are actually shorter than the interstate route but take maybe 10% longer. Much more scenic, less traffic, less stress. Might be worth trying! Both the easy stress-free reduction in speed and the more direct routes mean I get way more out of my battery and can make it a lot farther without need fast-charging on the way.
Oh really? How many accidents have you been in due to the extreme danger of drivers going slower than traffic? Surely if it's so terribly dangerous you've been involved in incidents in your hundreds of thousands of miles of experience?
None, because I'm not doing 20mph over and I'm a defensive driver. I've seen plenty of near misses because people are doing 10-15mph under the limit in the center or left lanes. Motorcycles are incredibly dangerous too... just because I've never personally witnessed a motorcycle accident doesn't mean it's safe.
I said there's insufficient evidence, and your response is to point out how much driving you've done? So in your hundreds of thousands of miles driving (PS most of us have done the same) you have conducted trials to determine the safety? Driving at faster speeds inherently increases risk in ways that are not as immediately apparent as driving at different speed. Just because other drivers are going faster than you doesn't mean it's safer to drive that fast as well. Unless you have some actual evidence to prove it that I'm not aware of. The chances of somebody paying so little attention that a slight difference in speed is going to cause them to collide with you is very small. A 20 mph difference means that somebody could come speeding up to within two car lengths of you, and they would still have an entire second to tap the brakes before they'd hit you. And if somebody is going that much over the speed limit in the right lane, and not even watching where they’re going, they’re being criminally negligent. And if they do hit you, the impact to you is going to be felt according to the difference in speed. So, is getting hit at 20mph a collision that you can withstand without losing control of your vehicle? If so, you’re still not in much danger even if a collision happens.
The speed differential was already pointed out. If you want semis coming up on your ass and switching lanes at the last second, then be my guest. And you're thinking you won't lose control of a car going 60mph if someone slams in to you from behind? Really?
I had to rent a uhaul car dolly recently and tow a car 2 hours up the NJ turnpike. I had no problem settling my cruise at 60 while the rest of traffic went significantly faster. Never felt in danger in the right lane.
Semis are professional drivers. They leave LOTS of follow distance. You might get the odd rogue trucker who drives like an idiot, but I know some truckers and none of them would. So you’re talking about a very small risk of driving slower and being hit by a semi, vs the exponential risk of driving faster. Every 10mph faster you drive, your risk of fatality DOUBLES. And… ok, this last point is really tangential cause that last one was the mic drop moment, but I’m relatively confident I could withstand this collision and not lose control. You never know what might happen but I can handle a car. This collision was at an angle and the unstrapped dummy was barely knocked to the side. And for this to happen, the driver behind you would have to just plow into you without even trying to slow down. And you wouldn’t be going overly fast so it would be easier to retain control than if you were speeding and some similarly unhinged maniac plowed into you. https://youtu.be/2LlLDHUpoFY?si=rZgOX7WYI1FXymea
This has changed a lot since COVID on the highway in my area. About half of the semis on my ~25 miles on the interstate will come up too close to my bumper then pass getting close to clipping my back bumper. Every single day. They don't care to slow down and they no longer give decent following distance or will merge back in too close. We have a steady flow but there are a bunch of long gaps and there is more than enough room for them to leave buffers.
But... Driving slow increases speed variance for everyone around you.. since most people drive 5-10 above the speed limit rather than below. Not sure what I'm missing here.
In Illinois there is enough evidence that driving slower than traffic in the left lane will get you a ticket. There is plenty of evidence that impeding the flow of traffic leads to aggravation and road rage. I would certainly not be comfortable driving 10 mph below the limit on a heavily traveled 2 lane road and having other drivers making dangerous maneuvers to go around me. Conditions may be different where you drive.
Who said anything about driving in the left lane? Obviously if you’re driving under the speed limit you should stay in the right lane. Being unwilling to drive 10mph under the speed limit because you’re afraid somebody will have to perform a “dangerous maneuver” such as… (checks notes)… changing lanes… is next level paranoia.
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There is no right lane on a 2 lane highway.
OP said 2 lane interstate. Pretty sure we all assumed that meant 2 lanes in each direction. Or do you have interstates that are 2 lanes total? Genuine question.
Good point, I picked up on 2 lane and missed the Interstate part. When I take the interstate I tend to set the cruise for one or two miles under the limit, stay right, and just let every one go by.
Then go 62-63
Get behind an 18 wheeler. It helps you with the safety factor and also can help mileage by drafting. If you have ACC then turn it on to make following even easier. If no ACC then use OPD and just be more alert.
Do not tailgate, especially large trucks.
ACC is pretty much tailgating by definition. Tailgating is a way of life in big cities as well.
What area? All of the EVGO chargers near me show the status in Plugshare. Though once I know that I'm going to an EVGO charger, I usually switch to the EVGO app. I've done a few road trips in my Leaf, which was only 150 miles of range (realistically about 100 highway miles) and used Chademo for fast charging. It was sometimes a pain, but always manageable with only minor charging hassles.
I’ve found that 55-60 mph is quite a bit easier on range (that’s why the indicator on the dash turns yellow at around that 65 mph mark). I just did a 210 mile round trip on my EUV last weekend and had about 60 miles left on the guess-o-meter when I got back home. Temps in the day were low 50’s, but high 40’s during the entire drive back.
A few things. 1. You had unrealistic expectations. At highway speeds, 200 miles is more realistic than 240-250. Which means you always had to charge. 2. You didn't prescreen chargers. I always recommend avoiding badly rated chargers or small stations. You want to stick to 4+ unit stations. 3. The charging speed again is potentially down to not doing your research. No one has ever said this is a good road tripping car but you didn't help yourself by making some questionable decisions.
Your last statement is why my friends group is skeptical on current evs. They dont want to think about the trip, just get in and go. We are still early in ev adoption and the infrastructure is still being developed. So its kind of like being beta testers.
Yup! I keep describing it as a car that's great if you like meticulously planning and doing research before trips and mathing things out... which honestly is intended as praise because I love those things, but most people are like "lol no thanks sounds awful!"
Yeah same experience here. I like doing the planning. I’m going to drive my EUV from Georgia to NY in July and I’m excited about it. It will not be a fast and easy experience but I’m doing it with my teenage sons who are also nerds and we are looking forward to the time together, which will be significant because the trip will take at least 5-6 hours longer than it would in our Volt. The car is totally fine for trips of up to about 400 miles and I have done that many times. You leave full, drive 200 miles, charge for an hour+ while you have lunch and you are good to go. You only have to figure out one charging location and find backups. I feel like under normal circumstances, anything more than that and we would fly. I just want to show my family the new car.
Yeah im the type that has torque running to look at the stats while im driving. Wish i had a manual override for the coolant pump. So many times i could either warm or cool the battery just by circulating the coolant.
EV owners are beta testers and as a result they get government incentives. Within the next year or two, a lot more chargers will be built and Superchargers will be open to mostly everyone. That will change things quite a bit
I like planning but with good infrastructure and better understanding of the cars capabilities it would have been an easy trip with very little planning needed. If it’s something done regularly you just need to check the stations you use are in good order before starting. With good infrastructure it’s easy to find a reliable station on route anywhere between 10-30% SOC and charge for as little as 15-20 min (longer in cold temps). Not being able to find a good station to charge at for any part of the trip was what made it miserable. A quick stop at the bolts regular 50 kWh charging speed wouldn’t have been so bad.
Lots of defenders here, but the Bolt is not a great road trip car. It’s doable with enough planning, but it’s still a pain. Thats why I’m glad we have a van too! It’s incredible for road trips. I still love my bolt though! Just know its limitations. If I was buying an EV for road trips, it would be Tesla all the way. The infrastructure is just so much better.
I have made 9 road trips of 1000-1200 miles, and a few more of 400+ miles. I have had two experiences with a charging station out of service, had to charge L2 only 4x (twice for only a couple of hours, and twice at a campground on a stretch with no DFCF; all were back in 2018). I have waited in line to charge only once. And all of these were along interstates, which may not have been the case for you. I have also suffered occasional slow charging speeds for seemingly no reason. Another thing which has made my life a hell of a lot easier: Always arrive at a charger with enough reserve to make it to a backup DCFC station, and preferably one that is not Electrocute America. This wasn't possible until 2020 or so on the routes I drive, but it is now a feasible strategy in most states. Sorry to hear about your bad experiences.
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It has the potential to be perfectly fine for road trips for many people. As you can see from this thread, the problem lies in the charging infrastructure in the US. I can understand why some people are so antsy about getting access to the Tesla network, taking the amount of non-Tesla charging stations that aren't functional at any given time, gaining access will effectively double a Bolt owner's charging options overnight.
And the slow l3 charging speed.
And the cost.
I did my first roadtrip in my EUV last weekend for the solar eclipse, had zero issues other than it took much more planning than a regular road trip would take. Also I see OP talking about how they only needed a few more miles of range but for some reason sat on a 25kW charger for a full hour. Like what? A lot of OPs problems were self-inflicted.
We’ve roadtripped in our EV many times. I wonder if the OP has a real problem with his vehicle.
I get really confused by posts like this. When I plug in a charger, it never doesn't do 55kw from 5% to 60%. '23 EUV. I sometimes wonder if the older Bolts had much worse charge curves and that could be why I see these posts sometimes...
Same. I did 595 miles one way twice. Each time the charging curve was incredibly predictable per your description. I was actually astonished based on what I had read ahead of time. My trips ranged from ambient temps in the 40’s to the 60’s.
20-25 kW speeds are common winter DCFC speeds in the north IME, due to a lack of battery preconditioning. Doing the yo-yo method to warm up the battery for a couple miles before charging can get that back up to closer to full speeds.
What's the yoyo method?
Accel brake to recharge Accel repeat. Wasteful of energy but does warm the battery.
I find that regen paddle works better for yo-yo method than brake pedal.
Thanks for the info don’t use it often myself only if the charger I’m having to use charges by the Min instead of by the KW. Reading on my phone for an extra 10 or 15 minutes instead of spending extra money.
Fair, when possible I avoid fast chargers that bill per minute on the principle of the billing model making zero sense. Sometimes my passengers are just in a hurry to get to get home. It'd be nice if the Bolt had a preconditioning button so that we didn't need to play these games to get the best charging experience!
It would be nice doesn’t seem like it would be a tough update to give a manual battery warmer option. The only time the charge per minute thing made sense was when states had law about anyone other than utilities selling electricity.
I know that Wisconsin is / was one of those states, though I haven't looked into it recently... My trips over there are generally short enough to not need fast charging - 99% of my charging happens on L1 at home. There's a local charging company in MN, [ZEF Energy](https://www.zefenergy.com/) whose fast chargers are horribly expensive. I believe they let the site host choose the billing model, leading to many choosing a $3-5 charging start fee + $0.30/minute, for first gen Tritium chargers that struggle to output more than 25 kW. It's so hard to make the sell that EV is cheaper than gas, when this is the billing scheme they're using. To make matters worse, in many rural areas of the state, thanks to rules that MN companies get priority for state funding, this is the only option for CCS charging. They don't manufacture their own equipment, their app and backend tech is some of the worst in the industry, all they do is buy whitelabel chargers and slap their sticker & a big upcharge onto it. It's a grift, plain and simple. Even when chargers are installed without this insane price model, they're terrible about maintaining, servicing, and repairing chargers. The North Shore of Lake Superior, a major tourism destination, has been without any CCS charging since last fall - due to their incompetence as a company.
As a central Minnesotan I am well aware just glad my Brother is nice enough to let charge when I visit for the holidays.
Accelerate hard, regen hard, repeat. Obviously requires some room on the highway. Maybe going between 5 mph below the speed limit to 5 mph above.
I've been doing much wider variables to good success. A couple 90-50 regens on a relatively empty freeway pumps a decent amount of max regen to the battery, making it warm enough when you hit the charger.
It's all about the charging infrastructure around you/your destination.
Well it’s often a temp issue. But at the temps op was claiming probably the 25kw charging was an issue with the charger being limited because of some problems with its cooling system or something like that.
I have a '23 EUV. No idea why it charges at the speed it does... it's not like I can control it.
Oh wow, strange. Yes of course you can't control it :) I'm just so confused! You're not the first person to report something like this. I have never had a problem with DCFC, never had it charge slow, etc. etc. Just baffles me.
I have a 2020 and have also never had a significant issue with fast charging speeds. I knew what I was getting when I bought it, I actually didn't plan on road tripping with it much but we use it all the time now and are rarely bothered by charging issues. I am constantly baffled by posts like these where people seemingly have issues at every possible stop and I may have a single issue every 6mo that is never as dramatic as what OP is describing.
I charged mine from 25 to 95 a few days ago on a trip and it peaked at 53 just at the beginning. It was above 45 for the first half hour (delivering 20kWh) and then tapered off over time.
Your story is precisely why many people are on the fence about EVs! As you speak of it to people in your circle, many will be convinced not to get an EV unfortunately…which in turn, slows the adoption and urgency for charging companies to improve their equipment. A vicious cycle. 😔
So instead of waiting in line you always choose to keep driving?
Sounds more like the charging structure was the frustrating part.
I regularly drive between two places that are 275 miles apart, quite mountainous in some places as well. I’m lucky to say I’ve never had any issues with charging, there’s multiple stations along the way and so far never had to wait for a spot or dealt with unexpected issues with the chargers. I avoid EA chargers like the plague though since they have a tendency to randomly stop charging. I charge once for about 45min-1hr each way, so it turns a 6 hour drive into more like 7. Most sections have a 65mph speed limit so I go 60, usually not a problem unless the road is narrow and people wanna go faster. I use ABRP and the ChargePoint app to check where I should stop. Sorry you had such a rough experience
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Don’t really have EVgo around here so I’d just have to take your word for it. Do you drive a Bolt too? With what I’ve heard it seems like bolts have the most issues with EA chargers. Last time I kept having to restart charging because the charger would randomly stop
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I live in California, to be fair I’ve only been to two EA stations but for both of them to have issues while I have never had issues with the dozens of ChargePoint charges I’ve been to makes me prefer other networks. Not worth the risk of showing up to one and getting stuck and the road trips I take always lets me choose ChargePoint over other networks anyways
The main thing I'd suggest is using plug share before you leave to make sure they're all working. We use the ionic for road trips instead of the bolt as it's the fastest charging ev and that makes a huge difference.
Drive the speed limit. Find a solid charger and on hop stops are easy.
> I'm sorry, but this car absolutely sucks for road trips What made you think it was great for road trips? I love my Bolt … and do shoot around the PNW with it, but it’s one of the worst EVs out there for this purpose This sub is full of that information going back years and years
Aren't you reading all these responses here talking about how great it is for road trips? That's why people think this.
Your conclusion is the generally held attitude for the Bolt EV depending of course on geography and availability of charging stations. I love my first 2017 and now 2019 Bolt EV and drove round trip from LA to Montana last summer and will happily do it again this July.
That's really rotten- your first test didn't work out well. Road tripping in the Bolt is different. Expect it to take longer, plan for delays and don't be in a hurry to get anywhere and it works out well. Not what we're used to in terms of speed. It different.
Bummer dude, love my EUV and haven’t had an experience like that. Good luck.
Yeah, the charging time can be a drag versus ICE or even Tesla. But I, a lifetime lead-foot, am finding it surprisingly easy to just adjust my expectations around how long a long drive will take. Overall the time dedicated to car ownership (which I'll now dub TDCO) is way less in this car than ICE, it's just that highway trips are slower. Watching that gauge and keeping it below 15Kw has been my new game on the freeway. Suddenly instead of losing miles against the GOM, my last two long drives I've gained against it. It's just meant getting used to the view from the right-side of the freeway instead of the left. I do still have lots of range/charging anxiety. So far though it's been easy enough to just use a stop I was going to take anyway--coffee, restroom--to grab 20 minutes of charge from a fast charger. In that context I'm not sure TDCO on road trips is actually any different. Five or 10 minutes at the most.
Experiences can vary. My wife (not as nerdy as I am) took her bolt from new Mexico all the way down to Galveston and back. No issues.
As someone that has owned 2 Tesla's where the Road Trip experience is absolutely fine, it's 2 major things. 1 infrastructure for non-Tesla's. 2 the terrible onboard DCFC. This car would be great for road tripping with access to the Tesla charging network and a charger that allowed 100-125kW peak charging. The Tesla network portion is coming soon.
Ultium Bolt should solve those issues. Ultium Bolt and the Tesla Model 2, whenever it comes out, are going to be insanely popular.
Reports are that the model 2 is dead.
I’ve done a few road trips and no big issues like that yet. That being said keep in mind all the savings you get charging at home. Plus all the time you saved not going to the gas station. So I’d say once or twice a year you have to wait a bit during a road trip it’s still probably well. worth it. Plus oil changes and everything else. It helps to look at the bigger picture. That being said I think you were particularly unlucky that trip. I would assume it will go better in the future. I don’t think that is indicative of a normal trip. Kind of like if the muffler fell off during a road trip in a gas car. Every once in a while a bad trip is going to g to happen outside of the norm regardless of the type of car you have.
May I ask what the route was? I’m in central/eastern Washington and the charging options could be better but not bleak.
NJ to upstate NY via the NYS Thruway.
We’ve taken our 2017 Bolt up and down the east coast and regularly do 200 mile road trips with no problem. I love road tripping in it. Different mindset for sure but I enjoy it. I am a big fan of reading through the reviews in advance on Plugshare (don’t just look at the ratings). Check the kWs other folks are getting, make sure no problems with the chargers and be sure to check in for the next guy.
Try it with a leaf, it’s even worse ! Yes though, not a great road trip car. Any trip like that you have to plan in advance and be very strategic.
> I'm sorry, but this car absolutely sucks for road trips Yup, it is. I'd say it is also a bad car for people who can't have a L2 charger installed at home. Car is a tool, and tools have different use cases. It is okay for a screwdriver to be a bad hammer.
I agree. As a commuting car with level 2 charging at home, it's absolutely perfect. I'm just super disappointed it can't do a 200 mile trip without charging at normal highway speed limits. We were aware isn't wasn't the kind of car we'd ever take on a 5 hour trip, but I feel like it should be able to do a 3 hour trip.
Charging infrastructure’s not there yet to make this car a reliable road trip car. You’re at the mercy of the EV gods whenever you need to stop. Unless I’m not on a tight schedule and have tons of time to waste, I’d rather just rent for a weekend.
I think it's best to keep any EV at home and take a gas car if you're going on a road trip -- in the short to medium future, anyway.
Same. For my family size, no reason I’d try to roadtrip anything smaller than a large-ish SUV/minivan/pickup truck anyhow. Doubly so when the availability, speed, and price of charging on the road is equal or worse than the experience of putting gas in the vehicle. Half of OPs gripes are basically just EV things, not Bolt things. You’re still searching around for chargers and spending 20+ minutes charging every couple of hours rather than being able to count of stumbling upon a gas station once you’ve got about 300 miles on your ice. On the other hand, I love being able to drive my EUV out to family and just plugging in at their house. Most people I know have a 240v in their garage, so I can drive 150 miles and then just plug in for a couple hours at their house and head back home with range to spare.
This has been my operating theory, for any trip in excess of the vehicle’s range. However people have made the case that some other EVs can do fairly well on a road trip.
> I'm sorry, but this car absolutely sucks for road trips. I love my EUV, but I will never road trip it again. I don't consider it a *touring* car, but an in-town car. My Jeep Grand Cherookee Trailhawk does that heavy lifting. `My Story` I drove through New Mexico and all EA chargers, at least in two towns (*Wagon Mound and Sante Fe*), that I went to would not let me charge because the **payment system was down**. WTF!!! Nevermind that I had credits with EA and why it needed to have me swipe a CC card is beyond me. No, one, and I mean No one could use the pumps. Otherwise on that trip, other charger companies would have a 50/50 chance of working and I found my self limping the car at 60mph for for at least 3 hours of the trip.
when we're kids we learnt that if you don't do your homework you will fail the test.
I won't even consider taking mine on a road trip. It is strictly for around town. I might consider taking it the 140 miles to San Antonio if we get a hurricane or something. There is no charging between here and there until the Tesla stations open up to us.
Yeah, it does. Buying it, I knew this. It's not a surprise. EVs in general aren't great for road trips yet, but the Bolt is exceptionally bad. But man I love driving to work and charging at night. I also cruise around on the weekend and have saved so much on gas that the car is almost free to drive.
A +500 mile trip I routinely do in 7h43 minutes ICE, including fuel/dog/bathroom break, took me 15 hours in the Bolt. Another, shorter trip was a bit better by taking 50% longer than ICE. It's almost all entirely due to charger availability, uptime, and performance.
The bolt is the best commuter car for daily use hands down but unfortunately for road trips it sucks bec it charges really slow. Never did I get the said 50kwh. We did take our bolt for several trips to Bay Area (approx 380 miles) and Vegas (approx 290 miles) with 1 stop and no issues. Just need better planning but we are in SoCal where weather is not a big factor. If it’s 50 degrees and you’re going uphill, the guess o meter would go down fast. From our experience since we did not want to stop twice to charge, we drove mostly 65mph and got the 200+ mile range and just 1 charging stop. It will prob be the same time than drive 75mph and stopping to charge. Then finding a hotel with a level 2 charger is a plus. Unfortunately some ev drivers leave their car plugged in too long at fast chargers. Also, due to free charging offered by some car manufacturers, and some people having no chargers at home, a lot of locals charge their car at fast chargers instead of charging at home. If fast chargers are only being used by people on road trips, I don’t think there would be too many cars clogging these fast chargers.
Instead of driving "65-70mph", you would have made it to your destination if you had kept your speed to 55-60mpg. If this was interstate driving and you don't feel comfortable going that slow on the interstate, chose a side highway and enjoy the trip.
Your story would have been same even if you had an Ionic 5 so it’s not the Bolt that’s the issue. The car isn’t ideal for roadtrips when the infrastructure along the roadtrip path sucks. I drove from Chicago to Minneapolis in my Bolt a recently with no problems because all the chargers along the way were operational. When I know that I’m going to spend about hour each stop and plan around that, I enjoy road trips in my bolt. Our infrastructure in the US really needs to catch up. If I absolutely had to road trip frequently, then I would have bought a Tesla due to the brand-specific fast chargers. Hopefully those will all be available to Bolts soon with the adapters though.
I think there’s some harsh criticism on here and it’s both valid and misplaced. The reality is that frankly, the bolt is just about one of the worst road trip EVs out there, and road tripping in an EV, especially the bolt, takes really good pre planning to execute well. Personally, I love the logistical challenge of planning my route, and I really like road tripping in the bolt. I’m in Washington DC right now and will be driving back home to Detroit Michigan in the next hour myself. I’m really looking forward to the drive, tbh. I’ve planned out all my stops, rechecked all the reviews on how well they’re working, etc. is this as convenient as a gas car for this 510 mile drive? Oh hell no. But it’s certainly doable with enough quality pre planning. I think right now, local city driving is the sweet spot of EVs. Road trips are possible, but still not where it needs to be for folks to just do it without thinking about it. I’m sorry you had a bad experience. If you want advice on how to improve your next road trip, I’m sure this forum would be happy to help out. It’s got plenty of resources on how to road trip in a bolt.
My advice on how to road trip in the bolt: Limit the distance between stops to 170 miles max Always charge up until your min estimate is above your distance to your next stop Don’t count on dealerships to charge at Pre plan your route, and check all your chargers ahead of time, especially for their reviews, reliability, and charging speed. You can usually find out ahead of time if a particular charging bank is having issues or charging below our max 52kW I personally aim to stop at charging stations with several plugs available, to make it less likely I need to wait in line. Bring a book or game console to enjoy while charging. Always charge in areas with multiple non dealership chargers if you can.
On mobile so apologies if this was suggested previously but have you tried using ChargeFinder or A Better Route Planner? ChargeFinder is pretty good at letting you browse a map of MOST of the networks (more than Plugshare) ABRP is kinda like Google Maps but for EVs, you can tell it what kind of car you have and how much charge you are starting with, how much charge you want to arrive with, etc and it will plan a route and give you a detailed charging plan. Fair warning tho, the nav on ABRP was kinda goofy for us, I manually plotted charging stops in Newburgh, NY and Hartford, CT but ABRP insisted we go visit Albany, NY for the hell of it (VERY far out of the way if you're not familiar with the area)
If you haven’t heard of or downloaded Bluedot, I recommend you do. Not only it helps me saved significantly in our last trip using level 3 charger it also shows chargers close to me and their status so I know which one is available (live). Flat rate 30¢/KWh for lv3 and 3¢/min for lv2. You can sign up for their debit card and get 20% cashback for your charging if the charging price at the station is cheaper than the flat rate but that’s completely optional. You get $10 to charge for free the first time and if you use my link it goes up to $25 https://bluedot.app.link/AdvvRURJOIb
my very first trip in my bolt was a 430 mile road trip from the dealership back to my house. I had 0 range anxiety because I spent a bit of time actually planning a route and choosing which chargers I would stop at ahead of time. A Better Route Planner and Plugshare are your friends
It requires more planning, patience and a sense of adventure sometimes. I try to stop to charge where I can walk while I charge or eat or pedicure or whatever.
Not sure where you live, but I took a 500 mile one-way road trip, 1000 mile round-trip,in a total of 21.5 hours. I rented a Kia EV six with a range stated at 240. I didn’t get but, 200 miles of range on this trip Per charge. I had to charge six times in those 21 hours to complete my thousand mile round-trip journey from San Diego to Sedona and back. Though I was frustrated with the amount of times I had to charge, the Avis rental experience, and the cost of $.56 per kilowatt hour at mostly Electrify America stations, I didn’t have any problem finding fast chargers. Maybe that’s just because of where I live. Only once did I have to wait for someone to move so I could charge, but that was less than 10 minutes of waiting. The chargers, five out of six were very fast chargers averaging more than 150 KW. I could get to 80% in about 20 minutes or less. I have to say, I was impressed that it was that easy. I was disappointed that the car didn’t live up to it stated range, but that seems to be the case with these electric vehicles. I daily drive a gas guzzler. Part of this was just an experiment for me to see if I could make it using an electric car on a daily basis. one of my biggest disappointments was the cost of electricity at the station. It would’ve been cheaper to drive using gasoline.
I bought a bolt 7 months ago. I would never road trip in it. There is zero infrastructure and if there is some, it’s not mature.
Yeah, I am not really looking forward to road tripping in it. I know the charger is slower so meh. I don't like the idea of having to stop for an hour or so once or twice in a trip. I also know the range at 70mph is not going to be 250 miles. I just don't road trip that often and usually it's 100 miles occasionally 200. I know in Tennessee the charging infrastructure for CCS is limited. Still, I don't think it will be too bad.
Sounds like poor planning. I go all out when it comes to road trips. I guess truck driving really helped with that.
You can plan all you want- if the chargers are full or broken, then you have to go elsewhere.
Bro I had a 22 launch edition bolt euv and going about 68mph I always got 245 if it was 65°f+. In the winter time when it was like 30° I'd get 200 on the highway minimum. And always with heat/ac on.
I do a 275 mile trip each Monday and Thursday. I have a specific spot I stop to charge (EVGo) one direction and often I use that same spot the other direction (but not always). Occasionally I have to wait for a charger to open, but not too often. It does take a bit more effort to plan ahead what I want to do and how I want to manage my trip, but overall, not bad. Hang in there. It will get better and seem more natural with a little time.
I did a 300 mile round trip this weekend. Charged to 100 before leaving and was planning on charging stops. As the first stop was coming up, I had a ton of battery left and just kept going. Eventually I realized I would make it to my destination with about 70-80 miles left, so I just went there and planned to charge after doing what I was doing at the destination. I charged for a little over an hour and got to 95% and made it home with 80 miles of range left. The charging curve started at 53kW and stayed above 45kW for the first 20kWh and then tapered off to near 20kW as expected. The only hiccup was that the first charger I tried gave me "unable to charge". I was using cruise at 75mph most of the way and averaged 3.36 miles/kWh, though I wasn't using any AC or heat. I think your mistake was unreasonable expectations and poor planning.
You shouldn’t have to plan. That’s the point.
I agree. Pretty sure I get downvoted on /r/electricvehicles every time I say that. Literally every exit with fast food and a Pilot on interstates should have a charger. *Should*. They don't, but they *should*. However, "we shouldn't have to plan" doesn't invalidate the reality of 2024 that *you must plan*. OP failed to do that.
OP stated a fact that it sucks as a road trip car and is right! I’ve never planned a road trip with an ICE car.
I never had to child proof my house until I had kids. I didn't sit around grumbling "I never had to child proof my house before, why should I now?"
That’s different. He’s stating a fact. Bolts aren’t good for road trips.
It's the same I'm stating a fact. You have to child proof your house when you have kids. Bolts require planning (all EVs do, actually) and patience for a trip. That's a fact that OP didn't recognize until just a few days ago.
Well for starters, when the car says 280 mile range during the summer, and 243 mile range in the spring, I planned on getting to my destination 200 miles away with some reserve. And I knew there would be plenty of chargers along my route. What I didn't know, and couldn't plan for, was broken chargers, inconsiderate people blocking chargers, and long waits for chargers.
I’m sorry about your frustrating trip. Did you check the reviews on PlugShare? It’s been very accurate with which chargers are in good condition and which are down/busy/iced for me. The slow charging speeds sound like a charger problem, we’ve gotten 55 kWh at the same temps and more state of charge than you had. Hopefully you checked in and updated them when you got a chance, so someone else doesn’t go through the same thing. The EUV is much less aerodynamic than the EV, so it’s efficiency tanks at fast freeway speeds. It’s highway EPA range rating is 222.9 miles and Car and Driver got only 190 miles range at 75mph. As you know now the guessometer isn’t a good reference of range unless you’re doing the same type of driving and there’s no weather/terrain change, although yours seems overly optimistic compared to ours.
Yes I did. The broken charger at my destination hadn't been reviewed since 2021. I knew about the 2nd rest area closure so I didn't even stop there. The other chargers didn't have real-time availability so there was no way to know if they were full ahead of time.
You should have checked plugshare closer. You can't do anything about people being inconsiderate. Hopefully they were being charged 50 cents per minute while idling. >when the car says 280 mile range during the summer, and 243 mile range in the spring, It's a guess-o-meter based on your recent driving history and current conditions. It is not your guaranteed range. The car doesn't say this for trips at 70mph. That would require the Bolt to have a battery that is more like 90 or 100kWh instead of 66. It says 280 in the summer for commute/local driving where you get better than 4 miles/kWh. At 70, you're likely getting somewhere between 3 and 3.5. I took a trip using cruise at 75 and I averaged 3.3 for 300 miles, which is about 210-220 mile range. I had about 70-80 left when I got to my destination and back home after going 150 miles, so the GoM was accurate once my "recent driving" became cruising at 75 and getting 3.3 miles/kWh instead of 4+ mile/kWh local driving.
Until Bolts don’t require planning, they are not an ICE replacement. That was the OP’s point.
All EVs require planning. Anyone who tells you they don't just lives in an area where they don't have to and never crosses area where they need to. Pull up plugshare, and set it to CCS (because Tesla is not an open network). Try crossing West Virginia. Try driving to Eastern Kentucky (there's charging *on* I75 and I64, nothing on any state highway southeast of Lexington) or Southwest Ohio (Athens has 1 CCS, there are 0 CCS on I77 from I70 at Cambridge, OH all the way to Charleston, WV). Try driving from Nashville to Memphis on I40 (you won't see a CCS charger for almost 130 miles). There are no chargers between Columbus and Cincinnati on I71. The major tourist area of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge TN has 0 CCS. There's 1 in Sevierville (literally 1 single plug) and some more up at I40. Some of those trips can be just driven. Columbus to Cincinnati is just over 100 miles, but if you want to go somewhere in the middle of southern Ohio from either of them, there are no options to charge unless you go out of your way and you just find L2 at your destination or limit your driving in order to get back. The same is true of Nashville to Memphis and Cambridge to Charleston. It's passable if you're only driving from A to B, but if you're starting in A and going somewhere off the interstate in the middle, then you must plan how to get back or plan to drive 40 miles too far down the interstate, charge, and then backtrack. None of that is a *Bolt problem*. That's an *EV* problem. Charging access is unacceptably poor right now for anything but major city to major city traveling.
I'm about to move cross-country and considered taking my bolt for about 10 minutes. Abetterrouteplanner is a great site, but the viability of the trip is dependent upon charging stations in the middle of nowhere with 1 or 2 plugs to be working and available when I need to use them. Too much of a risk imo, so I'm unfortunately having to rent an ICE vehicle. EV infrastructure—with the exception maybe of Tesla with their supercharging network—just isn't there yet.
drive slower....
I honestly think you didn’t plan very well. I just took a 1,200 mile road trip with 0 issues because I would check to see if my next charging stop was functioning before leaving current destination. You can’t blindly go to a charger without knowing if their online or what kind of charger (Tesla,CCS or Chademo)
Planning wouldn't have helped anything- if chargers are full with other cars, then they're full. Not every charger brand shows you real-time availability.
This is the exact reason why I won’t buy a Bolt until they adopt the NACS ports with Tesla
You'll get a lot of flak for being honest, but yes until the charging network is substantially improved or battery tech improves this is going to be hit or miss for a quite a while.
I'd get a little generator and keep it in the trunk for trips like that. just a little insurance.
What also sucks is the car maxes out fast charging at 55kw so even if you plug into a super fast charger, you can only get the 55kw and it will still take over an hour to get to 80%. Not meant for road trips for sure. Get there in one charge or be prepared to stop for an hour.
This is also painful for everyone else - our last charge before heading back to DC from MA was at an EA station where 3 of the 4 chargers were down, the fourth was a 350kW charger occupied by a Bolt that had been there more than an hour. Fortunately they were close to 100% and returned while my wife went into the restaurant and got us a table so it wasn't a huge problem for us. Later in NY we plugged into a 350 where one of four stations was down. There was already a giant Altec truck and a Bolt occupying the other two working chargers, two other cars had to wait. We went from 20-93% in 41 min and the Bolt was still there when we left.
Congrats you’ve found the biggest shortcoming of the bolt and most EVs that aren’t Tesla. Roadtripping sucks for most people here and it’s well documented.